Roll with It An honorarium continued
by Meg's Madness
Summary: I really enjoy CarrieB's story Roll With It and have been waiting and waiting to see where it's going to go. It hasn't been updated in a while so I wanted to try and see if I could write a possible continuation that's been in my head for eons.
1. Chapter 1

As Hotch is walking away Emily feels a longing so intense that she almost calls out his name to stop, come back to her, and give them both some comfort by catching the shattered pieces of her feelings and helping her reassemble herself. Instead she watches his car, and the Hotchner men inside it, drive off away from her. Away from the mess she found herself in and she is alone again.

She is tired and looking forward to going to bed, in warm pajamas, after a scalding shower. Emily tries not to think of how she wants to be with them, knowing it would all be ok.

_It won't_.

And that she would be safe.

_Never again._

She almost calls out for them to wait for her, but she has convinced herself that things are already settled and she's better off the only one maimed in the maelstrom. Almost.

The next morning, after spending endless minutes heaving over the toilet, she has a tiny portion of dry toast and some warm ginger ale. Never as good as coffee, nothing is really, but a small bit of fuel to keep her going until her appetite returns.

She walks into the room towards her desk, not noticing the quiet, thoughtful, glances of her coworkers. Everyone notices, and no one says a thing. Her frame is becoming more slender and angular by the day, they had all murmured their concern to Hotch and Rossi, but since she's neither physically unable to do the job, and hasn't grossly fallen apart mentally, they were lacking official resources to require intervention.

Reid looks over and tries very hard to think of something positive to say. All the thoughts fly out of his head as he observes his friend moving like a woman at least 1.5 times her age, possibly twice as old. He doesn't think she was in a car wreck since they would have been informed, but he does think something is fishy and can't quite work up the nerve to ask. Reid stands up from his desk and quietly walks off to have a chat with JJ.

Emily feels very heavy, tethered to the world by feet that won't move as she'd like, is exhausted and it's only 8:00 AM. Who knew that puking, making toast, puking, forcing herself to eat a few bites, and getting ready for work would be so draining? Her coat that was so heavy on her shoulders is a relief to place on the back of her chair. The suitcase is put on the floor next to the desk and suddenly she feels much lighter. Not quite as light as normal but able to move more freely as she pulls out her chair and sits down to review the mounds of paperwork that had piled up while she was gone.

Argh! Someone had messed with her desk. Obviously there would be paper work to be completed but she hadn't imagined that much of it. And who had messed up the order of things in the top corner? Grr… Before she can linger on that though too much someone was walking up to her desk, and while not hurrying they weren't being too quiet either.

"Hey, Em! How are you this morning?" JJ asked quietly as she stood just a little outside a comfortable distance. Her friend hadn't mentioned her concern but Emily could read it in her eyes. Her clothes were a bit wrinkled, her hair a little windblown, and her makeup slightly smudged. She felt run down but she was sure she looked it. Great, something else for someone to notice. Feeling pinned down she stood up to chat with JJ.

"Fine." She faked a smile. "How was your weekend with Henry?"

Emily could feel the stress and weakness creeping up on her nerves as JJ filled Emily in on her weekend events. The words and pleasant tone of JJ's voice rippled over her like water in a rocky stream. She wanted to stay under it, enjoy the cool sensation, the blessed relief that at last for one minute, one solitary minute, she could forget her situation. Oh, she desperately wanted to give JJ a hint, an idea that things just weren't right in Casa Prentiss, but she suddenly noticed Reid standing off to the side quietly observing their interaction from a slight distance.

It was enough to push her over the edge from being pinned to being trapped. All the feelings building up that she had been staving off went for an easy target.

Reid.

The profiler in her already unconsciously calculated his anxious stance, flickering eye contact, and slight gnawing at his lip as markers of an agitated person. Interrupting JJ's talk about a party Henry had attended, Emily was on the attack. Right for the jugular.

"Hey Reid! If you're going to listen in on someone's conversation you could stand a little closer! I'm not sure if you can hear everything JJ's saying." Emily said, as she watched from outside of herself. This time she wasn't seeing stars, or the moon, or hearing crickets. She was seeing red, and hearing a dim roar of her pulse in her ears. Surprised by her own verbal assault on Reid she stood still, a bit abashed, but mostly enjoying the moment of anger.

"Emily…I...don't…know", Reid stammers. His pulse racing he starts to turn the most brilliant shade of red, like a beefsteak tomato.

"Then keep out of this conversation. It's private!" Emily barks at him. She turns back to JJ expecting to hear her friend continue her story but notices that JJ was staring at her like she had two heads. _Too close to the truth._ Or had suddenly turned up to work in her underwear.

"Emily?" JJ tries to get her attention quietly. Emily was as still as she'd ever seen, with none of her joking tone, or friendly glances. She looked, JJ thought, as if she had dead eyes. JJ's heart sunk in that moment; she knew something was wrong with her friend, terribly wrong.

"Emily?" "Emily!_"_ JJ started to inch a little closer to Emily when suddenly Hotch, Rossi, and Morgan were all there too. JJ, who wasn't claustrophobic, started to feel a bit crowded. Emily felt absolutely smothered. Without warning she jumped up and ran straight to the locker room, shutting and locking the main door behind her as she held in sobs.

The ice was cracking, the glass that she encased herself in for these long weeks was giving, and she didn't want anyone else hurt. She needed to keep them out of it, for their own sakes.

The group of friends and coworkers stood in the BAU staring at each other for the longest time, when Reid suddenly announced sheepishly, to the frozen room, "I wasn't trying to listen to your conversation JJ."

"I know", JJ said, but she couldn't figure anything else to say at that moment.

No one could.


	2. Chapter 2

As Emily collapsed on the cold impersonal tile she was surprised at how shaken she felt. She hadn't expected that outburst, it just had happened. She had to push down the sneaking guilt for being mean to Reid but she was reluctant to admit the reason for it.

Aaron stood with the group, having heard quickly afterwards what had occurred. He felt his stomach sink to his toes.

"I'll go see how she's doing.", he says slowly as he heads for the locker room.

The group watches him walk off while they had a quiet but furious debate about what to do next and what might be wrong with Emily. If Hotch did know, which they had a sneaking suspicion he did, he wasn't going to say anything.

As Emily lay prone on her left side, with her right leg bent at the hip and her left arm stretched beneath her head she sobbed. She knew the small white tiles that stretched into a diagonal line forever were unspeakably filthy and covered with the tread of hundreds of footprints. It didn't matter. She cried as if she had never cried before in her life. Her sobs could be heard outside the thick steel door, and although they were very faint, Aaron could still hear them.

"Prentiss?", he said as he knocked. Cocking his head to the right and leaning a little closer to the door he could hear her ragged hitched breathing. He sighed deeply to himself, willing her to open the door, as time went on and the door didn't move he knew he needed to be patient.

Hotch rested against the door, facing the hallway, and slid down the door with reckless disregard for his favorite black suit. He loosened his tie a little and waited.

Several minutes, which felt like hours really, later he tried knocking again. Softer this time as he called her name.

"Emily?", he said. "Are you ok?" Dumb question, he thought, of course she isn't. _Idiot. _He tried again.

"Emily, could you please unlock the door?"

Silence.

Emily had heard his footsteps to the locker room and although she was still struggling to breath regularly, her crying jag over, she had to quell a moment of panic. She felt like a child hiding during a game of Tag and had a fight-or-flight moment with herself but she was too spent to rise from the floor. As her tears slowed, and she started to hiccup, all she could think of was how nice and cool the title felt under her flushed and hot face.

Reaching up to clear the tears from her eyes she groped in her pocket for a handkerchief. She didn't have one, damn it! Emily sniffed up her running nose and was thinking of wiping her nose on her sleeve, gross!, when she felt something touch her left hand.

Sitting up dizzily she realized it was Hotch's handkerchief he had tucked into his breast pocket that morning. Embarrassed he'd heard her crying she still reached for it and happily blew her nose and finished wiping her face with the fabric square. It was a nice Irish linen one, masculine, with a pretty hem around the edge. She smiled through her foggy head when she thought of how he wouldn't want it back now. At least until it had been washed anyway.

It was a piece offering, or that's how Emily decided to see it anyway. Not that she wanted anyone to see her in this condition, and her makeup being back in her purse, she carefully stood up and wobbled her way to the sinks. After washing away the raccoon eyes and smeared lipstick, she stood there mesmerized by her own image.

Pale, thinner than normal, and with dark circles under her eyes she was in no mood to face anyone, let alone her boss. The idea of being pitied was too much for her but she knew she couldn't stay in the locker room forever. A few more minutes and she figured they'd be breaking down the door, she was ashamed to see her coworker, and was caught in indecision until she heard Hotch again.

"Emily. You need to open up so we can talk. I want to make sure you are ok!", he said with more of a normal 'boss' tone in his voice.

Sighing to herself, and putting her own image out of her mind, she slid over to the door, reached up and unlocked it while feeling suddenly very nervous about what was going to occur.


	3. Chapter 3

Emily grasped the cool metal handle and slowly pulled the door open to see Hotch crouching on the floor. He didn't look very concerned but he did have the best poker face of the group. As he stood up, knees cracking slightly and the wrinkles in his suit easing out, he studied her face very intently. So intently that Emily felt pinned. Neatly compressed under his microscope she didn't feel that she could move and started feeling threads of panic uncoiling themselves down her spine.

Hotch quietly said, "Hey there Prentiss", as he walked in and closed the door. Emily backed herself up into a corner a few feet away as he shut the door and locked it again.

"Hey", she said in a quiet voice. She was trying to still the tremor in her voice, and reduce the amount of sniffling, since she shouldn't be crying at work. It always frustrates her that she cries when she is angry, it's a weakness she can't afford.


	4. Chapter 4

Hotch appraised Prentiss with his cool gaze, noting her anxiety in a perusal of her overall demeanor. He knew she wasn't well, regardless of the pregnancy, but wanted her to feel safe enough to tell him why herself. He didn't want to do it, but felt for her own sake something had to be done, even if just so she would admit things weren't right.

"Have you been to the doctor?" he asked in a concerned tone.

"Wwwhat?" she'd stuttered. Looking at him warily from under her crinkled brow.

"About the pregnancy? Have you had a chance to…make a decision?" he asks quietly. Lamely coming to a finish, finding himself a bit disconcerted about how to address the issue while at work. Let alone sitting on the floor. At work.

Shocked that he would push this discussion on her, ripping off the metaphorical Band-Aid, so to speak, surprised the hell out of Emily. She went from weepy and embarrassed to pissed-off in 0.02 seconds, which surprised the hell out of Aaron, already off kilter with the whole situation, thinking like a friend, he was blindsided by her attack.

"What the hell gives you the right to ask me, Sir?" Emily spat at him. "That's no one's business but mine!" How dare he! And at work too, where if crying wasn't embarrassing enough, people were probably standing right outside listening.

"Wait a minute, Em. I'm not pushing you for a decision; I just wanted to know how you've been."

Reeeeally?, she thought, there's other times and places asshole! "If you wanted to know why didn't you just come out and ask instead of ambushing me at work."

Hold on, she didn't just say that did she?

"Ambushing you? Prentiss, you were yelling at a coworker and locked yourself into this room. How is my reacting to your behavior ambushing you? It's everyone's business when you aren't acting rationally. You have been acting out of character for weeks. Pushing everyone away, not socializing, and looking for a reason to lash out of your friends and coworkers! If you need to be angry at someone, fine, pick me, but don't hurt others that are only trying to help you." Hotch raised his voice and faced her straight on, venting some of his frustration and worry as he spoke.

Prentiss was so angry she couldn't see straight. "Shut up Hotch! Damn it! I had no control over this, none at all, and I can't believe you are butting in, when you have no right!"

"No right?!" how dare she! "As of this minute you are off on leave until you pass a psych eval to determine your state of mind as a field agent. We will talk again after that appointment is over. You need to go home, and eat something for God's sake!" Hotch stalked over to the bathroom door, and opened it. Always the gentleman, albeit an angry one, he fumed silently while waiting for her to leave.

Emily was terrified about talking to the psych, and angry about being cast out of the office like some unstable person. As she slunk past Hotch exiting the bathroom, to upset to look at him, she snatched her purse off her desk, and absentmindedly noticed there was no one around. She hurried to her car to die in private. Like a normal person.

It didn't hit her, or Hotch, until much later that she had tacitly admitted what he had suspected all along. He was sitting at his desk, cooling off, doing mindless paperwork when suddenly the thought came to him. The pen dropped from his nerveless fingers and rolled across a few sheets of fanned out paper.

Aaron had wished he was wrong, he had hoped he was wrong, about Emily's resent behavior, her lack of interest in things outside of work, but to have it confirmed brought all the pieces clicking into place like a nearly finished puzzle. Hotch sat for a moment, rose and turned his office lights off, put his head into his hands and wept.


End file.
